It was back in 2005 that Penny Arcade first coined the term “bullshot”, giving a definition to the practice of doctoring video game screenshots to make them look better than the game actually is. You’d think the intervening seven years, the rise of the video trailer and a growing awareness of the practice would have…
The anime industry, while not as strong as it was back in 2004-2006, is still booming. During any given week, there will be between 30 to 50 series airing (not counting reruns) on TV, generally during the late hours of night. Most series run for about 11-13 episodes (A few will go between 24-26 episodes).…
Hako! Open Me, AR puzzle game for the Vita, will be out on Dec. 20 in Japan as a download.
Free to play. Free. To. Play. Sounds good, but watch the fine print. With most games these days, when something is free, you tend to get what you pay for. Generally, you’ll end up getting a fraction of the actual game with the rest being either unattainable or incredibly hard to get to without pulling…
This fall, tensions between China and Japan got serious. A dispute over islands stirred up nationalistic demonstrations in China. Protestors didn’t just take to the streets to voice their anti-Japanese sentiment. Some of them took to their hard drives. According to Japanese daily Nikkan Spa!, during those protests, websites that shared pirated clips and videos…
Japanese game maker Sega has screwed up too many times to count. But there’s one thing Sega got so right. But only after it got everything so wrong. At the 2011 Tokyo Game Show, Sega showed a new Hatsune Miku game for the 3DS. It featured a slightly unsettling Miku. Hatsune Miku is a virtual…
In Japan, NicoNico is coming to the Wii U as a free app
Sega and Creative Assembly have announced today that the British development house, famous for its Total War strategy games on the PC, will be expanding to take on a number of Warhammer video games. Sega says “a new high-calibre development team has been set up at Creative Assembly’s UK studio to work alongside the existing…
So, I’ve made no secret of the fact that I’m a bit of an Animal Crossing addict. The game continues to be a smash hit in Japan. So much so that even now, almost a month after its initial release, most stores are still sold out with only the download version available. Players clock into…
Pow! Smack! Brass knuckles can mess people up. Japanese designers Shuji Tomishima and Takushi Okina are going more for fashion than violence with these “sound effect” rings. The rings have sound effects that one would typically find in Japanese manga. For example, above there is a ring that reads “do” (ド), but could be used…
Aero-Cross, the HD download version of Metro-Cross, has been cancelled due to “various circumstances”.
Sony brands the PS Vita as more than simply a game portable. Maybe it should call the machine a “crime fighter”, too? This week’s episode of Gekiroku: Keisatsu Micchaku 24ji!! (think Cops, but in Japan) followed the cyber police division in Fukuoka Prefecture. In one scene, the cyber cops were tracking down a criminal for…
This is a Game Boy made by MaboroshiTira. It doesn’t work, in so much as you can’t put a regular cartridge in it and play it. Because, uh, it’s made of cardboard. Its buttons do press in, though, which is a bonus, because really, just looking at this thing is pleasure enough. MaboroshiTira [DeviantArt, via…
Considering that Snoop Dogg’s Ask Me Anything on Reddit is one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen on the internet, I’m truly thankful he talks about video games enough to justify me posting about it in Kotaku The Ask Me Anything wound up earlier today, and it is an absolute must read, mainly because—unlike…
Ack! With this new horrifying glitch, Phantasy Star Online 2 has discovered a new level of hell. Character skins can accidentally change… for the worse. The much, much worse. *shudder* Players discovered this bug (and others) after a recent update, and it causes the skin of non-playable characters to, under certain conditions, turn a truly…
Adventure Time creator Pendleton Ward tells Edge magazine about his favourite games. Others listed include Altered Beast and, awesomely, Klik & Play My favourite game: Pendleton Ward [Edge 248, Christmas 2012]
Should Nintendo ever work up the courage to really mess with the setting of Mario games, there are worse ideas they could have than to have the plumber fighting his way through some Dickensian clockwork castle. And if he did, well, the lady he was trying to rescue would need to dress the part as…
I’ve been featuring a ton of Assassin’s Creed III art here lately, so it’s about time I showcase some from its handheld stablemate Assassin’s Creed III: Liberation These images are the work of Nacho Yagüe, a senior concept artist at Ubisoft Toronto. You’ll see not only a selection of his work on the first Vita…
Far Cry 3 does something interesting with its protagonist Jason, presenting him not as a bloodthirsty killer with military training, but as some kid, thrust into a situation well outside his abilities or understanding. When you jump off a cliff, he screams. When you cut open an animal for its skin, no matter how many…
League of Legends might be one of the biggest games in the world, but it’s not without its share of problems. Chief among them the fact many of its players are hostile, anti-social assholes. That’s something developers Riot Games are trying to address, and according to lead producer Travis George in an interview with Gamasutra,…
Mode
Follow us